Gas Works Park

The neighborhood of Fremont is home to a good number of Seattle's artists, musicians, actors, sculptors, dancers, set builders and circus performers. These creative sorts do their own thing most of the year — a gallery opening here, a zombie "flash mob" there — but on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, all of Fremont comes together to throw one of the best summer parties you've ever attended.

The Fremont Solstice Parade and Fair puts every last one of those artists, jugglers and musicians to work making fun.

The highlight of the event is the Mardi Gras-like parade that opens the fair. As befits a neighborhood with a bridge troll, a salvaged statue of Lenin that the locals wrap in lights at Christmas and a faux-Latin motto that loosely translates to "the freedom to be quirky," the parade begins with hundreds of naked Seattlites painted in rainbow hues, riding bicycles.

What follows is pretty much every kind of strolling entertainment imaginable — stilt walkers dressed as robots, troupes of drummers banging out tropical rhythms, troupes of bellydancers, men dressed as nuns, giant foot-pedaled floats and more. Every year brings new floats, new costumes and new surprises, but one thing remains the same: It's an amazing sight to see.

The parade travels down NW 36th Street and virtually the entire length of Fremont,  from Third Avenue NW to Gas Works Park. But while the parade may stop at Gas Works, the party continues on.

There's live music, locally made beers, street food, "art cars,"  arts and crafts to view or purchase, and lots of hands-on activities for the kids.The longest and second-longest days of the year are scarcely long enough to contain it all.

- by Geoff Carter, Seattle Reporter for HelloMetro  (Click to leave a message)